Ahelicopter has four controls: the cyclic joystick, the tail rotor pedals, the collective lever and the throttle.

The cyclic controls the plane of the main rotor rotation, that is, the disc. The collective controls the angle of the main blades to give less or more lift. The pedals control the angles of the tail rotor to compensate for the tendency of the main rotor torque to spin the aircraft in a direction opposite to the main blade rotation, and the throttle adds more or less power to the rotors and is used to keep the rotation speed constant. Got that? Good. Takes time to get them to all work in harmony.

When you fly an approach to land at a given spot, you have to follow a determined flight path. Fly too low and too slow and, if the engine fails, you will crash and burn. Fly too high and you will end up in a high hover over the chosen spot and, if the engine fails, you will crash and burn.

There are many ways to crash and burn, varying through ground resonance, vortex ring state, low rotor rpm, flying behind the power curve . . . and so on. All these are crashes caused by bad flying. There is a whole herd of other potential mechanical failures. The most interesting thing is that, once you get into a dangerous flying condition, often your options for getting out are very limited.

Much the same has happened to Eskom. In 1994, the present government was handed a perfectly good power system, run by Eskom. The power station build programme had kept pace with development, electricity was cheap and allowed South African mines to run at good profits. Eskom staff were well trained, Eskom salaries were slightly above market but reasonable.

As soon as the present government took over, it messed the whole thing up. It pushed Eskom to place untrained previously disadvantaged people in high positions and got rid of highly trained staff by giving them early retirement packages, thus ensuring that the untrained previously disadvantaged people would not get trained except by trial and error. They stopped the power station build programme. The then Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs, Penuell Maduna, and government orchestrated the signing over of huge blocks of power supply to three aluminium smelters, thus committing nearly all the surplus power which Eskom had at the time.

The results were predictable: In 2007/8, there were rolling blackouts all over the country. The ‘old’ Eskom staff could have probably kept the system going but the untrained staff could not. I listened in astonishment to some of the tales – how, given grid separation of a number of power stations, the system operations people had used up hydropower reserves which would take months to return to required levels; operation of the wrong power lines at the wrong loads. And so on. Today things are getting worse. Many Eskom coal contracts have corrupt transport operators. The Medupi power station, under construction, has a boiler control software system which does not work and is way behind. Boilers, supplied by Hitachi South Africa (which is 25%-owned by the ruling party) have been found to have about 2 000 defects.

Futher, government’s renewable-energy programme, which orders Eskom to buy power at exorbitant rates from wind farms and other renewable-energy suppliers, has sent power costs soaring.

Like a helicopter being badly flown, the whole edifice is on a flight path which can only lead to disaster. It is not the fault of Eskom. The untrained have now become trained. It is interference by government and ruthlessly self-interested politicians which is responsible for the whole mess. If Eskom business was left to Eskom and not politicised for gain by the ruling party, we would have a well-run power system providing affordable power, with a surplus and a well-planned build programme. But it is not going to happen, is it? The ruling party has no idea how to fly a power system but ludicrously thinks it can. Only one result, like the poorly flown helicopter . . . crash and burn and sooner than you think, this year.